


Nougat

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Category: Discworld
Genre: Background Rufus Drumknott/Havelock Vetinari probably, Chocolate, Gen, Higgs & Meakins, Nougat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25958743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: nougat isn’t that bad, you guys are just mean
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Nougat

There is a sheet of paper in the top of boxes of chocolate assortments that tells you what it contains and indicates the different shapes of chocolates with different fillings. This sheet of paper is invariably lost in the thrill of observing the glossy patina of the confectionary. Perhaps it spontaneously combusts faster than can be observed by the human eye.

Narrative imperative demands that ‘life is like a box of chocolates’ means ‘you never know what you’re going to get.’ Dramatic irony wouldn’t work otherwise. 

Susan, Duchess of Sto Helit, was having a good day. Her life had been pleasantly devoid of supernatural interference, most of her youngest class hadn’t forgotten how to use the toilet, and the Higgs and Meakins luxury assortment in her desk hadn’t plagued her with nougat.

The Dean of Unseen University noticed something slightly odd. Usually a Higgs and Meakins assortment was laid out in an even rectangle, a neat stacked grid. The one he had just bought had the chocolates offset, like bricks in a wall. Instead of four rows of five, there were two rows of five and three rows of three. 

Havelock, Lord Vetinari balanced the crimped paper cup of a chocolate wrapper on the end of a finger and stared an it, eyes unfocusing from the room around him. “Isn’t there usually one with nougat?”

“I believe so, my lord,” Rufus Drumknott said, used to diversions that the Patrician seemed to pursue with more feverish intensity than some of of his actual work.

“Did you eat it?”

Drumknott sighed. “I am mildly allergic to chocolate and, moreover, I find the implication that I take things without asking hurtful.” 

“Hmm.” The Patrician let the paper wrapper flutter down to the desk. 

“I realize that I am the other person living in these apartments, but I would like it recognized that I am not, and have never been, a sink of missing things.”

Vetinari put the brown and gold lid back on the now-empty chocolate box. 

“And _you_ caused the burn on the table from the soup pot.”

Vetinari closed his eyes. “Can you put this in the waste paper basket.”

Drumknott did so. 

“I’m sorry.” Vetinari said, “I know organization is important to you, and you think taking things is wrong. I respect that.”

“You are a gentleman and a liar.” 

Higgs & Meakins were doing better business than ever. They’d raised the price for their 20-piece assortment although it was now nineteen pieces, but no one seemed to mind. The removal of an aspect people didn’t like seemed had evidently improved the value of the product. They couldn’t remember why they had ever introduced the nougat piece in the first place.

That was until a tall shadow in robes darkened their door.

The Patrician didn’t frequent Wienrich and Boettcher because there was no way to justify the expense and it wouldn’t do to seem continental (never mind that the city was landlocked).

He couldn’t technically be said to frequent Higgs & Meakins either, since the box tended to last for months even if he wasn’t cutting the individual chocolates into little pieces with a ceramic knife.

His aunt, and before that his father, would take away the chocolate eggs from Soul Cake Tuesday, claiming they would grow mold if he kept them under the bed. Or ask “Are you waiting for them to hatch?” which was funny the first two times, if you’re four years old.

He liked chocolate, he was really very fond of chocolate, especially when life was sad and stressful, but it was like listening to a symphony orchestra play something grand and canonical. It wasn’t something you wanted to do every day. 

Vetinari swept into the shop like a schooner flying a black flag. 

“Until recently,” he said slowly, enjoying the way Meakins was trying to hide behind the cashier without making it obvious, “Higgs & Meakins have been Ankh-Morpork’s primary importer of nougat, turrón, turun, torrone, etcetra, is this not so?”

Bosun Higgs, peering around the door of a back room, and seeing who was in the shop, immediately considered pretending that he did not exist and becoming very hard to find. The existence of Bosun Higgs was implied in the standard model of duonym business naming, but that didn’t mean anyone had to prove he was around.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Aaron the cashier said in a bored voice, saving their employer from having to utter a terrified squeak of affirmation.

“And we want to continue to be on good terms with the exporters of these products.” It was not a question.

Aaron shrugged exaggeratedly, contriving to reveal more of Ms. Mara Meakins hiding behind them.

“Am I right in thinking you have been charging more for a box containing fewer chocolates?”

“Well, what with inflation from all this paper money business—“ Meakins began.

“I believe I have a reasonably good grasp on the state of the money supply as it differs from,” Vetinari raised an eloquent eyebrow, “two months ago.”

“Alright, yes, we changed the assortment, but it was due to market pressures,” Meakins said, her words tumbling over each other.

“I’ve never put much store by market pressures. They are so very fickle.” Vetinari laced the fingers of both hands over the death’s head of his cane.

“I don’t think people are going to start liking something they haven’t liked the entire time we’ve been in business.”

“As tyrant and sole ruler of the city-state of Ankh-Morpork, I _ask_ that you return to previous practices in re nougat. For reasons of trade relations, of course.”

“Of course.” Meakin didn’t so much say the words as squeeze them out of a shallow exhalation.

“Now don’t let me detain you.”

The Patrician watched Aaron appear to unconsciously mouth the words “don’t let me detain you” as he said them. 

Vetinari swept out of the shop like a person who had a fan who was slightly less bored on a Tuesday afternoon.


End file.
